


Until Then

by nuuboo (orphan_account)



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 13:29:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3898075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/nuuboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small scene of Kakashi, post-Asuma’s death, and the way grief gathers like dust in the minds of those not brave enough to face it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until Then

When Iruka found Kakashi, it was on the floor of his home, surrounded by empty beer cans and half a box of cold rice that looked unappealing enough to make anyone lose their appetite. He didn’t bother announcing his presence as he shut the door, and slipped his sandals off with a tired sigh. The stink of stale beer was thick and heavy, near stifling; the standard bachelor apartment, small as it was, left little room for fresh air with all the windows shut, and Kakashi wasn’t one to ever really have them open. 

“It’s disgusting,” Kakashi said, head on his knees. Iruka looked over, said nothing, and waited. “This world we live in–it’s foul.”

A saint in his own way, Iruka had all the patience in the world when it came to dealing with small children, irritable genin, and Kakashi–and there wasn’t much difference between the three, when he really thought about it. “You’re drunk,” he says, an unnecessary observation to test the waters. Kakashi grunted, took another swig of a half-empty can, and shut his eyes. If Iruka had to guess, Kakashi had been at this all night; he looked and smelled as though he hadn’t showered in a while in favour of marinating himself in whatever alcohol he had on hand. There were beer stains on the floor, soaked well into the tatami mats. Now somewhere past nine in the morning, Iruka decided that he’d rather not do any such guessing, lest he was right in his assumptions. 

“It’s a shit world where a father goes before even seeing his child’s face,” Kakashi continues, bitter and angry at the beer in his hands, at the light peeking through the curtains, at the mess on his floor, at himself and at Iruka for being here to see him like this. 

Iruka nodded solemnly, staring, unseeing, at the bed frame Kakashi was propped against. Asuma’s funeral wasn’t yet a week old, and those that knew him still struggled to greet each other, still found it difficult to smile or wave or step back into their normal routine. Kakashi had taken it in stride, Iruka thought; Kakashi’s shoulders remained slumped, his eyes remained dull, and his voice remained strong. He should’ve known that it’d catch up to him like this, and he should’ve known that the end result would’ve been unsettling; coping was unavoidable to even the best of soldiers, and Kakashi was no stranger to grief, or death, or the unfairness of the life they lived. “He’d want you to continue fighting,” Iruka said gently. For a moment, he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing; Kakashi’s hand closed tightly around the can until the metal bent and the liquid hissed and fizzled out. If his silence was indicative of anything at all, Iruka thought it to be an opportunity to continue filling it himself. “We all… know the sacrifices we have to make. Our jobs are like that. We knew that from the start. We chose this life–it’s not the other way around. Not really. Not even when it seems that way. Not even when it feels like it’s sucked us in, like we can’t get out no matter how hard we try.” 

The birds outside seemed unusually loud. Maybe it was a credit to his good hearing, but Iruka could hear the mewl of a stray cat as clearly as he could hear Kakashi’s breathing, and the dull murmurs from the apartment below, and the breeze blowing gently enough to make the wind chimes nearby tinkle. He sat with their shoulders touching, Iruka’s hand barely brushing against Kakashi’s wrist; it was a small movement, but Kakashi’s shoulders relaxed just a bit, and it was another three minutes still before his head came down against Iruka’s shoulders, a dead weight smelling faintly of yesterday’s rain and muted kunai polish. Iruka had mourned, too. Iruka knew Asuma through the Third, and the Third’s favouritism led Asuma to become an unwilling older brother to the otherwise orphaned young boy at the time; he remembered Asuma’s hearty laughs, the way he clapped Iruka too hard on the shoulder until Iruka stumbled forward, the pack of cigarettes he gave him for his eighteenth birthday that Iruka still kept, unopened. He thought to Kurenai, and to her unborn child, and found that he couldn’t dismiss Kakashi’s notion; it _was_ a foul world they lived in. But, Iruka thought, any other life would be unfair, still. There was no salvation for their kind: this was always what they were meant to do. Kakashi’s fingers were around Iruka’s wrist now, squeezing down. 

“There’s nothing good about our lives,” said Kakashi, with the same sharp bitterness that had built up over time. “Not in this world. There’s no room for hoping, or dreaming… Not like this. There’s _nothing_. There’s nothing.” 

“What we have together is good,” Iruka replied, staring tiredly at an old crack in the wall opposite. “Everything ends, Kakashi. Everyone dies. It’s unavoidable, so… before we die, shouldn’t we try to live? Until then, shouldn’t we make the most of what we have?” 

Kakashi’s grip tightened, and remained so for the next few minutes. He couldn’t reply–not with the bile in his throat threatening to rise too high, a result of a swell of emotions he’d rather not feel and of the copious amounts of beer he’d drank on an empty stomach; he swallowed thickly, and let the can fall to the floor. Now, he could hear the birds. He could feel the sun against his back, warm on his skin; he could smell Iruka’s soap, sweet like vanilla, calming. Iruka had that effect, he realized–on him, on small, crying children, on nervous parents at their kids’ first day of school; Kakashi never understood what it was, or how one person could affect him so profoundly in a way he’d rather wish away altogether, were he able to. Denying it caused more torment than accepting it did, he realized, and the realization itself was one he almost wished he didn’t have–if only to guiltlessly seclude himself again, to retreat from the world and those in it in a warped manner of self-defense. 

They sat there together in his dirty, barren apartment, muggy with the smell of dry sweat and stale beer and days-old food, until the village clock chimed on the hour, and then on the next, and on the next. Maybe there was something in Jiraiya’s books after all–about the benefits of having someone at your side, of having an extra set of shoulders for your burdens and your troubles. Maybe he’d re-read Icha Icha Paradise again and find out–just to be sure. 

Iruka was an anchor in the turbulent sea that threatened to swallow him whole, day in and day out, his hands a rope that pulled Kakashi back to the docks of safety. Safety. He could never really outrun his past, could he? It would never really leave him, would it? And when it caught up to him, fierce and aggressive from the chase, what then? _Everything ends_ , he thought, hearing Iruka’s low, calming voice resonate in his mind. _But until then… until then…_

When he closed his eyes, he saw Obito and Rin standing there as though waiting for him in a sea of unending darkness; and with a surge of borrowed courage–half from drink, half from Iruka’s hand on his own–he decided that he, too, could live another day.


End file.
